Product Description
AEROPLANES




This work is not intended to set forth the exploits of aviators
nor to give a history of the Art. It is a book of instructions
intended to point out the theories of flying, as given by the
pioneers, the practical application of power to the various
flying structures; how they are built, the different methods of
controlling them; the advantages and disadvantages of the types
now in use; and suggestions as to the directions in which
improvements are required.

It distinctly points out wherein mechanical flight differs
from bird flight, and what are the relations of shape, form, size
and weight. It treats of kites, gliders and model aeroplanes,
and has an Interesting chapter on the aeroplane and its uses In
the great war.


Every Boy's Mechanical Library

AEROPLANES

BY
J. S. ZERBE, M. E.
Author of Automobiles--Motors


COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY
CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY
NY


CONTENTS

INTRODUCTORY

CHAPTER I. THEORIES AND FACTS ABOUT FLYING

The "Science" of Aviation. Machine Types. Shape
or Form not Essential. A Stone as a Flying Machine.
Power the Great Element. Gravity as Power. Mass
and Element in Flying. Momentum a Factor. Resistance.
How Resistance Affects Shape. Mass and Resistance.
The Early Tendency to Eliminate Momentum.
Light Machines Unstable. The Application of
Power. The Supporting Surfaces. Area not the Essential
Thing. The Law of Gravity. Gravity. Indestructibility
of Gravitation. Distance Reduces Gravitational
Pull. How Motion Antagonizes Gravity. A
Tangent. Tangential Motion Represents Centrifugal
Pull. Equalizing the Two Motions. Lift and Drift.
Normal Pressure. Head Resistance. Measuring Lift
and Drift. Pressure at Different Angles. Difference
Between Lift and Drift in Motion. Tables of Lift and
Drift. Why Tables of Lift and Drift are Wrong.
Langley's Law. Moving Planes vs. Winds. Momentum
not Considered. The Flight of Birds. The
Downward Beat. The Concaved Wing. Feather Structure
Considered. Webbed Wings. The Angle of Movement.
An Initial Movement or Impulse Necessary. A
Wedging Motion. No Mystery in the Wave Motion.
How Birds Poise with Flapping Wings. Narrow-
winged Birds. Initial Movement of Soaring Birds.
Soaring Birds Move Swiftly. Muscular Energy
Exerted by Soaring Birds. Wings not Motionless.

CHAPTER II. PRINCIPLES OF AEROPLANE FLIGHT
Speed as one of the Elements. Shape and Speed.
What "Square of the Speed" Means. Action of a
"Skipper." Angle of Incidence. Speed and Surface.
Control of the Direction of Flight. Vertical Planes.

CHAPTER III. THE FORM OR SHAPE OF FLYING MACHINES
The Theory of Copying Nature. Hulls of Vessels.
Man Does not Copy Nature. Principles Essential, not
Forms. Nature not the Guide as to Forms. The Propeller
Type. Why Specially-designed Forms Improve
Natural Structures. Mechanism Devoid of Intelligence.
A Machine Must Have a Substitute for Intelligence.
Study of Bird Flight Useless. Shape of
Supporting Surface. The Trouble Arising From Outstretched
Wings. Density of the Atmosphere. Elasticity
of the Air. "Air Holes." Responsibility for
Accidents. The Turning Movement. Centrifugal Action:
The Warping Planes.

CHAPTER IV. FORE AND AFT CONTROL
The Bird Type of Fore and Aft Control. Angle and
Direction of Flight. Why Should the Angle of the
Body Change. Changing Angle of Body not Safe..... ... Read more

Product Description
THE ZEPPELIN'S PASSENGER

By E. Phillips Oppenheim




CHAPTER I


"Never heard a sound," the younger of the afternoon callers admitted,
getting rid of his empty cup and leaning forward in his low chair. "No
more tea, thank you, Miss Fairclough. Done splendidly, thanks. No, I
went to bed last night soon after eleven--the Colonel had been route
marching us all off our legs--and I never awoke until reveille this
morning. Sleep of the just, and all that sort of thing, but a jolly
sell, all the same! You hear anything of it, sir?" he asked, turning to
his companion, who was seated a few feet away.

Captain Griffiths shook his head. He was a man considerably older than
his questioner, with long, nervous face, and thick black hair streaked
with grey. His fingers were bony, his complexion, for a soldier,
curiously sallow, and notwithstanding his height, which was
considerable, he was awkward, at times almost uncouth. His voice was
hard and unsympathetic, and his contributions to the tea-table talk had
been almost negligible.

"I was up until two o'clock, as it happened," he replied, "but I knew
nothing about the matter until it was brought to my notice officially."

Helen Fairclough, who was doing the honours for Lady Cranston, her
absent hostess, assumed the slight air of superiority to which the
circumstances of the case entitled her.

"I heard it distinctly," she declared; "in fact it woke me up. I hung
out of the window, and I could hear the engine just as plainly as though
it were over the golf links."

The young subaltern sighed.

"Rotten luck I have with these things," he confided. "That's three times
they've been over, and I've neither heard nor seen one. This time they
say that it had the narrowest shave on earth of coming down. Of course,
you've heard of the observation car found on Dutchman's Common this
morning?"

The girl assented.

"Did you see it?" she enquired.

"Not a chance," was the gloomy reply. "It was put on two covered trucks
and sent up to London by the first train. Captain Griffiths can tell you
what it was like, I dare say. You were down there, weren't you, sir?"

"I superintended its removal," the latter informed them. "It was a very
uninteresting affair."

"Any bombs in it?" Helen asked.

"Not a sign of one. Just a hard seat, two sets of field-glasses and a
telephone. It seems to have got caught in some trees and been dragged
off."

"How exciting!" the girl murmured. "I suppose there wasn't any one in
it?"

Griffiths shook his head.

"I believe," he explained, "that these observation cars, although they
are attached to most of the Zeppelins, are seldom used in night raids."

"I should like to have seen it, all the same," Helen confessed.

"You would have been disappointed," her informant assured her.
"By-the-by," he added, a little awkwardly, "are you not expecting Lady
Cranston back this evening?"

"I am expecting her every moment. The car has gone down to the station
to meet her."

Captain Griffiths appeared to receive the news with a certain
undemonstrative satisfaction. He leaned back in his chair with the air
of one who is content to wait.

"Have you heard, Miss Fairclough," his younger companion enquired, a
little diffidently, "whether Lady Cranston had any luck in town?"

Helen Fairclough looked away. There was a slight mist before her eyes.

"I had a letter this morning," she replied. "She seems to have heard
nothing at all encouraging so far."

"And you haven't heard from Major Felstead himself, I suppose?"

The girl shook her head.

"Not a line," she sighed. "It's two months now since we last had a
letter."

"Jolly bad luck to get nipped just as he was doing so well," the young
man observed sympathetically.

"It all seems very cruel," Helen agreed. "He wasn't really fit to go
back, but the Board passed him because they were so short of officers
and he kept worrying them. He was so afraid.... ... Read more

Product Description

The Riverside Library

High Adventure

A Narrative of Air Fighting in France

By

JAMES NORMAN HALL



BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge

COPYRIGHT, 1917 AND 1918, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY JAMES NORMAN HALL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED


_Published June, 1918_


The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.


TO
SERGENT-PILOTE DOUGLAS MACMONAGLE
KILLED IN COMBAT NEAR VERDUN
SEPTEMBER 25, 1917





Contents


I. THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS 1

II. PENGUINS 24

III. BY THE ROUTE OF THE AIR47

IV. AT G. D. E.79

V. OUR FIRST PATROL107

VI. A BALLOON ATTACK144

VII. BROUGHT DOWN167

VIII. ONE HUNDRED HOURS 182

IX. "LONELY AS A CLOUD" 200

X. "MAIS OUI, MON VIEUX!"209

XI. THE CAMOUFLAGED COWS216

XII. CAFARD226

LETTER FROM A GERMAN PRISON CAMP233




HIGH ADVENTURE




I

THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS


It was on a cool, starlit evening, early in September, 1916, that I
first met Drew of Massachusetts, and actually began my adventures as a
prospective member of the Escadrille Americaine. We had sailed from
New York by the same boat, had made our applications for enlistment in
the Foreign Legion on the same day, without being aware of each
other's existence; and in Paris, while waiting for our papers, we had
gone, every evening, for dinner, to the same large and gloomy-looking
restaurant in the neighborhood of the Seine.

As for the restaurant, we frequented it, not assuredly because of the
quality of the food. We might have dined better and more cheaply
elsewhere. But there was an air of vanished splendor, of faded
magnificence, about the place which, in the capital of a warring
nation, appealed to both of us. Every evening the tables were laid
with spotless linen and shining silver. The wineglasses caught the
light from the tarnished chandeliers in little points of color. At the
dinner-hour, a half-dozen ancient serving-men silently took their
places about the room. There was not a sound to be heard except the
occasional far-off honk of a motor or the subdued clatter of dishes
from the kitchens. The serving-men, even the tables and the empty
chairs, seemed to be listening, to be waiting for the guests who never
came. Rarely were there more than a dozen diners-out during the course
of an evening. There was something mysterious in these elaborate
preparations, and something rather fine about them as well; but one
thought, not without a touch of sadness, of the old days when there
had been laughter and lights and music, sparkling wines and brilliant
talk, and how those merrymakers had gone, many of them, long ago to
the wars....
... Read more

Product Description
THE AEROPLANE SPEAKS

By H. Barber

(Captain, Royal Flying Corps)



DEDICATED TO THE SUBALTERN FLYING OFFICER




MOTIVE

The reasons impelling me to write this book, the maiden effort of
my pen, are, firstly, a strong desire to help the ordinary man to
understand the Aeroplane and the joys and troubles of its Pilot; and,
secondly, to produce something of PRACTICAL assistance to the Pilot
and his invaluable assistant the Rigger. Having had some eight years'
experience in designing, building, and flying aeroplanes, I have hopes
that the practical knowledge I have gained may offset the disadvantage
of a hand more used to managing the "joy-stick" than the dreadful
haltings, the many side-slips, the irregular speed, and, in short, the
altogether disconcerting ways of a pen.

The matter contained in the Prologue appeared in the Field of May 6th,
13th, 20th, and 27th, 1916, and is now reprinted by the kind permission
of the editor, Sir Theodore Cook.




CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

PART
I. THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES AIR THEIR GRIEVANCES
II.THE PRINCIPLES, HAVING SETTLED THEIR DIFFERENCES, FINISH THE JOB
III. THE GREAT TEST
IV.CROSS COUNTRY



CHAPTER
I. FLIGHT
II.STABILITY AND CONTROL
III. RIGGING
IV.PROPELLERS
V. MAINTENANCE


TYPES OF AEROPLANES

GLOSSARY





THE AEROPLANE SPEAKS




PROLOGUE




PART I. THE ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES AIR THEIR GRIEVANCES

The Lecture Hall at the Royal Flying Corps School for Officers was
deserted. The pupils had dispersed, and the Officer Instructor, more
fagged than any pupil, was out on the aerodrome watching the test of a
new machine.

Deserted, did I say? But not so. The lecture that day had been upon
the Elementary Principles of Flight, and they lingered yet.

"I am the side view of a Surface," it said, mimicking the tones of the
lecturer. "Flight is secured by driving me through the air at an angle
inclined to the direction of motion."

"Quite right," said the Angle. "That's me, and I'm the famous Angle of
Incidence."

"And," continued the Surface, "my action is to deflect the air
downwards, and also, by fleeing from the air behind, to create a
semi-vacuum or rarefied area over most of the top of my surface."

"This is where I come in," a thick, gruff voice was heard, and went
on: "I'm the Reaction. You can't have action without me. I'm a very
considerable force, and my direction is at right-angles to you," and
he looked heavily at the Surface. "Like this," said he, picking up the
chalk with his Lift, and drifting to the Blackboard.

"I act in the direction of the arrow R, that is, more or less, for the
direction varies somewhat with the Angle of Incidence and the curvature
of the Surface; and, strange but true, I'm stronger on the top of the
Surface than at the bottom of it. The Wind Tunnel has proved that by
exhaustive research--and don't forget how quickly I can grow! As the
speed through the air increases my strength increases more rapidly than
you might think--approximately, as the Square of the Speed; so you
see that if the Speed of the Surface through the air is, for instance,
doubled, then I am a good deal more than doubled. That's because I am
the result of not only the mass of air displaced, but also the result
of the Speed with which the Surface engages the Air. I am a product of
those two factors, and at the speeds at which Aeroplanes fly to-day,
and at the altitudes and consequent density of air they at present
experience, I increase at about the Square of the Speed.... ... Read more

Product Description

AVIATION IN
PEACE AND WAR


BY

Major-General Sir F. H. SYKES
G.B.E., K.C.B., C.M.G.
LATE CHIEF OF THE AIR STAFF
AND
CONTROLLER-GENERAL OF CIVIL AVIATION


LONDON
EDWARD ARNOLD & CO.
1922
All rights reserved




CONTENTS


PAGE
INTRODUCTION7

CHAPTER I. PRE-WAR9

Early Thoughts on Flight. The Invention of the Balloon.
First Experiments in Gliders and Aeroplanes. The Wright
Brothers and their Successors in Europe. The First
Airships. The Beginnings of Aviation in England. The
Inception and Development of Aircraft as Part of the
Forces of the Crown: the Balloon Factory; the Air
Battalion; the Royal Flying Corps, the Military Wing,
the Naval Wing. Tactics and the Machine. Conclusions.

CHAPTER II. WAR44

General Remarks on War Development. Co-operation with
the Army: Reconnaissance; Photography; Wireless;
Bombing; Contact Patrol; Fighting. Co-operation with
the Navy: Coast Defence, Patrol and Convoy Work; Fleet
Assistance, Reconnaissance, Spotting for Ships' Guns;
Bombing; Torpedo Attack. Home Defence: Night Flying
and Night Fighting. The Machine and Engine. Tactics
and the Strategic Air Offensive. Organization.

CHAPTER III. PEACE 96

The Future of Aerial Defence. Civil Aviation: as a
Factor in National Security; as an Instrument of
Imperial Progress; Financial and Economic Problems;
Weather Conditions and Night Flying; Organization; the
Machine and Engine. Air Services: British, Continental
and Imperial.

CONCLUSION131




INTRODUCTION


Since the earliest communities of human beings first struggled for
supremacy and protection, the principles of warfare have remained
unchanged. New methods have been evolved and adopted with the progress
of science, but no discovery, save perhaps that of gunpowder, has done
so much in so short a time to revolutionize the conduct of war as
aviation, the youngest, yet destined perhaps to be the most effective
fighting-arm. Yet to-day we are only on the threshold of our knowledge,
and, striking as was the impetus given to every branch of aeronautics
during the four years of war, its future power can only dimly be seen.

We may indeed feel anxious about this great addition of aviation to the
destructive power of modern scientific warfare. Bearing its terrors in
mind, we may even impotently seek to check its advance, but the appeal
of flying is too deep, its elimination is now impossible, and granted
that war is inevitable, it must be accepted for good or ill.
Fortunately, although with the other great scientific additions,
chemical warfare and the submarine, its potentialities for destruction
are very great, yet aircraft, unlike the submarine, can be utilized not
only in the conduct of war but in the interests of peace, and it is
here that we can guide and strengthen it for good. Just as the naval
supremacy of Britain was won because commercially we were the greatest
seafaring people in the world, so will air supremacy be achieved by that
country which, making aviation a part of its everyday life, becomes an
airfaring community.

Our nation as a whole has been educated, owing to its geographical
situation and by tradition, to interest itself in the broader aspects of
marine policy and development. It requires to take the same interest in
aviation, a comparatively new subject, unhampered to a great extent by
preconceived notions and therefore offering greater scope for individual
thought.... ... Read more

Product Description
THE DOMINION OF THE AIR
The Story of Aerial Navigation
by Rev. J. M. Bacon




CHAPTER I. THE DAWN OF AERONAUTICS.


"He that would learn to fly must be brought up to the constant practice
of it from his youth, trying first only to use his wings as a tame goose
will do, so by degrees learning to rise higher till he attain unto skill
and confidence."

So wrote Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, who was reckoned a man of genius
and learning in the days of the Commonwealth. But so soon as we come to
inquire into the matter we find that this good Bishop was borrowing from
the ideas of others who had gone before him; and, look back as far as
we will, mankind is discovered to have entertained persistent and often
plausible ideas of human flight. And those ideas had in some sort of
way, for good or ill, taken practical shape. Thus, as long ago as the
days when Xenophon was leading back his warriors to the shores of
the Black Sea, and ere the Gauls had first burned Rome, there was a
philosopher, Archytas, who invented a pigeon which could fly, partly by
means of mechanism, and partly also, it is said, by aid of an aura or
spirit. And here arises a question. Was this aura a gas, or did men use
it as spiritualists do today, as merely a word to conjure with?

Four centuries later, in the days of Nero, there was a man in Rome who
flew so well and high as to lose his life thereby. Here, at any rate,
was an honest man, or the story would not have ended thus; but of the
rest--and there are many who in early ages aspired to the attainment
of flight--we have no more reason to credit their claims than those of
charlatans who flourish in every age.

In medieval times we are seriously told by a saintly writer (St.
Remigius) of folks who created clouds which rose to heaven by means of
"an earthen pot in which a little imp had been enclosed." We need no
more. That was an age of flying saints, as also of flying dragons.
Flying in those days of yore may have been real enough to the multitude,
but it was at best delusion. In the good old times it did not need the
genius of a Maskelyne to do a "levitation" trick. We can picture the
scene at a "flying seance." On the one side the decidedly professional
showman possessed of sufficient low cunning; on the other the ignorant
and highly superstitious audience, eager to hear or see some new
thing--the same audience that, deceived by a simple trick of schoolboy
science, would listen to supernatural voices in their groves, or
oracular utterances in their temples, or watch the urns of Bacchus fill
themselves with wine. Surely for their eyes it would need no more than
the simplest phantasmagoria, or maybe only a little black thread, to
make a pigeon rise and fly.

It is interesting to note, however, that in the case last cited there is
unquestionably an allusion to some crude form of firework, and what more
likely or better calculated to impress the ignorant! Our firework makers
still manufacture a "little Devil." Pyrotechnic is as old as history
itself; we have an excellent description of a rocket in a document at
least as ancient as the ninth century. And that a species of pyrotechny
was resorted to by those who sought to imitate flight we have proof in
the following recipe for a flying body given by a Doctor, eke a Friar,
in Paris in the days of our King John:--

"Take one pound of sulphur, two pounds of willowcarbon, six pounds of
rock salt ground very fine in a marble mortar. Place, when you please,
in a covering made of flying papyrus to produce thunder. The covering
in order to ascend and float away should be long, graceful, well filled
with this fine powder; but to produce thunder the covering should be
short, thick, and half full."

Nor does this recipe stand alone. Take another sample, of which chapter
and verse are to be found in the MSS. of a Jesuit, Gaspard Schott, of
Palermo and Rome, born three hundred years ago:--.... ... Read more